In many situations, a pixel of an image may be rendered utilizing multiple surfaces that are at least partially transparent. For example, each pixel representative of hair, foliage, smoke, etc. may be rendered utilizing multiple surfaces that are at least partially transparent. Unfortunately, traditional techniques for rendered pixels associated with multiple semi-transparent surfaces have exhibited various limitations.
For example, such traditional techniques have generally required the semi-transparent surfaces associated with a pixel to be sorted prior to rendering the pixel. While sorting at the object level has conventionally resulted in unwanted artifacts when objects overlap in depth, sorting the various semi-transparent surfaces of a pixel has been computationally expensive. There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.